The Next Ten Years, Pt. 3

In my post on The Next Ten Years, I predicted that:

On the economic front, 2020 will see a implosion of the "healthcare bubble". By the middle of the next decade,  most Western nations will be in a panic over he increasing cost of providing medical care to their aging populations. But at the same time, genetic engineering, nano machines and improving CPU power will be working from the other directions, making diagnosis, prevention and treatment easier and cheaper. 2020 will be the year that healthcare costs actually level off as increased understanding of the human genome and a program called "Google Doctor" will create "predictive medicine", which will allow for the prevention of most serious and chronic illnesses through gene therapy and other extremely early interventions.

Today, Tyler Cowan tells us about a new service that starts to bring "predictive medicine" into being:

In Hawaii, Kaiser Permanente has started a pilot project that churn through its database of patient data to predict which patients might need which tests - and then sends individuals email alerts suggesting they come in for a test or checkup. It's the same sort of technology that Netflix uses to recommend movies. And the Cleveland Clinic has teamed up with Microsoft to bring self-monitoring tools to patients managing chronic diseases, successfully engaging them in better health behaviors without expensive visits to the hospital.

 

The Joseph Korbel School of International Relations Knows Talent when they see it...

They have accepted me into their graduate program in International Relations. I haven't made a full decision yet as I'm still waiting to hear back from a few programs - I know Princeton told me "no soup for you"- but this takes a lot off my mind. I know I have somewhere to go next August and I know I can hit the slopes all winter. 

Me Run? You Betcha!

 H/T: Andrew Sullivan used this video when live blogging Palin - and I find it fitting as well. As an aside, this actress is too old to be Evita, as was Madonna. 25-26 max. I'd love to see Lea Michel or Jessica Lee Golden as Evita. But I'm way off topic....

Palin. Sarah. Barracuda. 

Yeah.

"I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country," Palin said, later adding: "I won't close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future."

I don't like it and I don't want it to happen. She's scary. She does not understand the gravity of the presidency.

Like her interview with Charlie Gibson, her views on foreign policy are just plain scary. "We win, they lose" or something.

I went to high school with Sarah Palin. Not Palin, per se, but a bunch of people who were just as dumb and just certain they were right. Fortunately for the world, most people that dumb and certain are swallowed whole by the mid-west or some small town in Alaska before they can do any real damage. Unfortunately, the McCain team was irresponsible enough to elevate this dangerous and unserious woman to a position where she could potentially do real damage.

From Sullivan: 

Do not under-estimate the appeal of a beautiful, big breasted, divinely chosen warrior-mother as a military leader in a global religious war. Bush at least had some inkling that we need a strategy to depolarize the Muslim world and bring moderates along with us to defeat the Islamists; in my view, he genuinely believed that what happened at Abu Ghraib was wrong but couldn't break down his denial that he had authorized almost all of it (she wants more of it); his Washington Cathedral speech reflected statesmanship (Palin wants brazen projection of hard power everywhere and her election as president would represent a true crisis in any alliances that Obama has been able to rebuild).

If Palin can navigate the primary process - and if unemployment remains high - the White House is hers. The press will empower the Junta from Alaska - just as they acted as accessories after-the-fact to John Edwards pathetic charade for nearly half a decade - before they turn on her midway through her first term. By then she'll have launch codes. And if the description of Palin from Game Change is to be believed - and no credible source has yet to disputed Heilemann and Halperin's scenes - then Palin is more then just a dilettante - she is quit possibly mentally unstable.

Palin did not understand WWI, WWII, the existence of two Koreas or even the name of her opponent in the vice presidential debate. Uninformed dose not begin to describe Palin.

She was prone to bouts of depression that left her near catatonic. She worried incessantly about her approval ratings in Alaska even as she was in the race of the lifetime that would have put her a heart beat away from the presidency. 

And then there's the weird story of her pregnancy - or - lack thereof? - with her youngest son. From today's Daily Dish:

Since I long ago committed to publishing any evidence I could find related to Palin's remarkable pregnancy stories (she steadfastly refuses to provide any), I post it below:

What dose this mean? Was Palin not pregnant? Not really in labor? This is just odd.

What I will say conclusively is this: Palin is a dangerous person. I fully support any T.V. network paying her as much money as possible so as to dissuade her from quiting her day job and running for president, but I fear this woman will have to be dragged from the national stage leaving claw marks all the way.

Hopefully, unemployment falls precipitously throughout the next two years and Obama will be virtually guaranteed a 2nd term. For whatever misgivings I have about the president - especially his penchant for not holding underlings accountable for failure - President Obama remains head and shoulders above Sarah Palin in terms of judgment and temperament. I wish the president a successful 2nd year. 


 

The Next Ten Years, Pt. 2

Recently, I predicted that within a decade there would be some sort of device which would instantly translate from language to another.  I pegged its arrival on the market as the year 2020. Maybe Google plans to beat me by a few years: 

Google's vision for a better world involves removing those pesky language barriers that keep people apart, and so the Internet search giant has begun development on a voice recognition and automatic translation system for cell phones. Such technology could either herald a new era of fruitful international collaboration or usher in new grievances and conflicts, depending on your viewpoint. The Times makes the obligatory reference to the Babel Fish of Hitchhiker's Guide that spawned bloody interstellar conflicts.
Experts remain divided over whether Google can accomplish its goal within several years, but the company may stand the best chance of doing so. So far, smart phone voice translators for English speakers have only come out for specific languages such as Japanese and Arabic.

Google already has a separate system for translating text on computers that covers 52 languages, and uses the company's special algorithms to continually scan millions of websites and documents as a form of improvement. It would presumably try to integrate the translation system with its more basic voice recognition system for smart phone commands.

Interestingly enough, Google appears poised to begin the creation of my predicted "Google Doctor" in the not-to-distant future as well. 

Book Review: The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, by Joel Kotkin

  In his new book The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, Joel Kotkin attempts to extrapolate current trends for forward 40 years to create a vision of exactly where and how the next hundred million Americans will live. I heard about this book in Tom Barnett's WPR column last week and immediately ordered it, looking forward to a nice bit of Utopian futurism. What I found was a somewhat meandering history of urban politics in America that is at once informative about the future of medium sized cities and uninformed about international politics and economics. The book is also long on description but short of prescription, preferring to say "this will happen" as opposed to "this is how things will happen".

   Kotkin begins his book by taking down a couple pieces of conventional wisdom about the United States - mainly that the U.S. is currently in a state of decline. Kotkin is especially rough on the notion that either China or India is poised to overtake the U.S. economically, pointing out that both countries still have a large percentage of their populations living in poverty and that China in particular is set to age rapidly, having over a third of their population over the age of 60 by the mid 2030s. Kotkin is certain that this rapid aging (which also impacts Japan and the E.U.) will bedevil most other major powers while the America's ability to integrate new immigrants will allow us to remain dynamic. Ultimately, Kotkin offers a vision for a healthier, wealthier, post-racial, post-ethnic America that will remain the global leader in innovation even in the mid 21st century.

What's Useful About this Book:

As a resident of Columbus, Ohio, I know that Kotkin's analysis of the folly of a medium sized mid-western city trying to become a "luxury city" is 100% accurate. Kotkin calls out Cleveland and Dayton specifically, but as I watch the local debate about whether or not to bail out the local NHL franchise (money looser - big time) I think his point is dead on. Kotkin's advice is that medium sized cities need to focus on what he call "vanilla" services, such as police, fire and local schools, as opposed to marque projects "downtown" which are designed to attract the "creative class" but typically wind up money pits in all but the largest and wealthiest cities. Kotkin compares the results of Potemkin luxury cities, like Cleveland, Philadelphia and Dayton, with vanilla cities like Austin and Phoenix, and suggests that the path of the latter is a better strategy for 21st century sustainability.

On the topic of sustainability, Kotkin is bullish on not only on America but the global environment as well, taking a very Lumborgesque "wealthier is healthier" outlook. And Kotkin is skeptical that the current environmental obsession with urban living, believing that Americans are unlikely to ever give up their preference for owning their own home and living in the suburbs. Kotkin believes that current Great Plains small towns in states such as Iowa and Nebraska will become the suburban boom towns of the next several decades.

Less Useful Sections of the Book: Unaddressed Issues:

1. Kotkin spends exactly zero time addressing the coming Medicare implosion. I think it's beyond remiss to write a book in 2010 about America in the year 2050 without seriously addressing the financial issues the U.S. government faces. 

2. Kotkin's read on international politics is, at best, short sighted. He seems to embrace the notion of America as an ever-evolving institution but quickly reverts to The Clash of Civilizations when discussing other world powers such as China and Russia. He takes the so-called Beijing Consensus way too seriously, seemingly ignoring the myriad of problems which plague China's political system - and which justify his belief that China will not surpass the U.S. - and suggests that China will develop a sort of Sino-Globalization opposed to the United States. Can't have it both ways guy - either China has a long way to go or they've discovered a longer lasting light bulb - can't be both. For what its worth, I'm a big supporter of his first proposition - China has a long way to go before they are truly strong and what we've seen in the last 3 decade basically amounts to China picking a lot of low hanging fruit.

Kotkin's read on Russia is even worse, bordering on silly even. He suggests that Russia will successfully embrace something called neo-Czarism. This supposition completely ignores the failure of the Russian economy in the wake of the financial crisis and also ignores Kotkin's earlier read on Russia's weakness.

3. Perhaps the biggest weakness of Kotkin's book has to do with point #1. Kotkin makes a series of vague suggestions for policies but offers no way to pay for them. He writes vaguely about energy policy and industrial policy but doesn't explain how America can square the circle, so-to-speak, with regard to the increasing share of overall government spending going to entitlement spending and the need, if we are to pay for Kotkin's policies, to increase discretionary programs.

In conclusion, The Next Hundred Million offers a welcome dose of optimism but is long on assertions and short of policy national policy suggestions. On the other hand, Kotkin's observations about housing patterns could be very useful to students or practitioners of state and local politics. In fact, I recommend Columbus mayor Micheal Colman read this book ASAP.  Beyond local politics, however, Kotkin's theories could use a bit of fleshing out, and I might recommend he look into writing a follow up which examines what type of economic policies would best empower state and local governments to follow his policies.

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.

The Opposite of "Get Rich Quick" isn't "Get poor soon"....

Nick Kristoff has a great story in the NYT about a reverse get-rich-quick-scheme:

Kevin Salwen, a writer and entrepreneur in Atlanta, was driving his 14-year-old daughter, Hannah, back from a sleepover in 2006. While waiting at a traffic light, they saw a black Mercedes coupe on one side and a homeless man begging for food on the other.

“Dad, if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal,” Hannah protested. The light changed and they drove on, but Hannah was too young to be reasonable. She pestered her parents about inequity, insisting that she wanted to do something.

“What do you want to do?” her mom responded. “Sell our house?”

Warning! Never suggest a grand gesture to an idealistic teenager. Hannah seized upon the idea of selling the luxurious family home and donating half the proceeds to charity, while using the other half to buy a more modest replacement home.

 Yep. These idiots sold their $1.6 million dollar house and donated half the money to charity.

Then they wrote a book about it.

I'm disgusted. Here is why:

1. That little girl has a GREAT topic to write about in her admissions essay for Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, etc. I would kill for a great topic like that. As long as she isn't a complete knuckle dragger, she's virtually guaranteed acceptance. Is it worth $800k to get into a top school? I don't know, it seems like you'd be better off making a donation to the school of your choice - but - I suppose you need access to an alumni network to know who to talk to about a donation and you still risk the girl not getting accepted to the school you made the donation to whereas with this method she's got a all access path she can use to apply to many schools.

2. Whenever Earnest Hemingway wrote a hero the character would often perform selfless acts without the desire for recognition. These bozos didn't have that problem. If you're really such a hero, why don't you donate the money anonymously? But no, not in America, not in the year 2010. Today, you do something "good" (I'll to that in a minute) and then you write a Oprah Book about the event. I'm going to go out on a limb and say between the advance, royalties, maybe an eventual movie deal (Tom Hanks and Sandra Bollock, I say), plus their daughter's acceptance to a Ivy League school I bet they recouped most of that $800 grand.

3. Oh, and the economics of the whole thing is just ridiculous. Why not say to your daughter, "How did the guy in the Mercedes get the Mercedes? What do you think he does for a living? Do you think he's maybe made better choices then the bum?" The answer to all those questions is that the guy in the Mercedes was almost certainly a highly educated professional who invested many years into becoming proficient at something whereas the bum probably wouldn't know what to do with money if you gave it to him. But you won't get into Harvard writing that in your admissions essay.

What this family did was a get-rich-quick-scheme in reverse.

Get rich-quick-schemes are dangerous.    

The money they donated to a charity in Ghana would have done more good if it had been invested in a business in Ghana.

But more important is the implication that there is a "simple" solution to poverty. The implication is that if everyone would just cut their consumption in half poverty could be eliminated and the ECONOMY would be sated by the sacrifice. This theory was recently pilloried in a source far more scholarly and reputable than the NYT's Op-Ed page. 

The only solution to poverty is to grow the economy. You cannot grow the economy easily. Growing the economy requires investment in companies that invest in innovation and new technologies. Growing the economy also requires years of education in science and mathematics.

The Next Ten Years

Curzon, of Coming Anarchy, has an interesting blog post entitled, Ahh, the Futility of Strategic Forecasting…, which details some of the trials and tribulations of trying to guess what sorts of challenges a nation-state may face several decades out. For example, he points out that:

1900 - If you had been a strategic analyst for the world’s leading power, you would have been British, looking warily at Britain’s age old enemy: France.
1910 - You would now be allied with France, and the enemy would now be Germany
1920 - Britain and its allies had won World War I, but now the British found themselves engaged in a naval race with its former allies the United States and Japan.
1930 - For the British, naval limitation treaties were in place, the Great Depression had started and defense planning for the next five years assumed a “ten year” rule—no war in ten years. British planners posited the main threats to the Empire as the Soviet Union and Japan, while Germany and Italy were either friendly or no threat.
1936 - A British planner would now posit three great threats: Italy, Japan, and the worst, a resurgent Germany, while little help could be expected from the United States.
1940 - The collapse of France in June left Britain alone in a seemingly hopeless war with Germany and Italy with a Japanese threat looming in the Pacific. America had only recently begun to scramble to rearm its military forces.
1950 - The United States was now the world’s greatest power, the atomic age had dawned, and a “police action” began in June in Korea that was to kill over 36,500 Americans, 58,000 South Koreans, nearly 3,000 Allied soldiers, 215,000 North Koreans, 400,000 Chinese, and 2,000,000 Korean civilians before a cease-fire brought an end to the fighting in 1953. The main opponent in the conflict would be China, America’s ally in the war against Japan.

With this challenge in mind, he asks C.A. readers to make predictions about the next ten years. And since nobody likes a wishy-washy visionary, here goes nothing:

U.S.Politics


By 2014, the American political system will face its Waterloo. Four or five weeks ago I would have suggested this involved the disillusion of the GOP, but after last Tuesday's vote in Massachusetts I'll say its a tossup about which party collapses over the next two election cycles. Frankly, if the Democrats can't pass ObamaCare with 60 votes in the senate, a huge majority in the house and control of the White House, they don't deserve to be a party anyway.

But the election of Scott Brown highlights another issue which the U.S. will have to wrestle with over the next 2 elections cycles - the need to have a super majority to do anything at all in the senate. We will face a "Waterloo" when some sort of crisis - be it natural disaster, terrorist attack or financial crisis - will expose the senate as a hollow organization. Should such a crisis happen - particularly if the crisis involves massive inflation or the U.S. defaulting on its debts, American may have no choice but to convene a new constitutional convention and design a parliamentary system.

On the other hand, a new national party, perhaps spurred on by the "Tea Parties" could help create a sustainable centrist coalition. The Tea Parties, as they stand today, lack any sort of coherent policy position beyond "cut spending," etc, but as either the Democrats or GOP collapse its possible talented politicians will move to a viable 3rd party.

By the election of 2020 statehood for at least 1 Caribbean country will be a major campaign issue.

By 2020 marijuana will be sold over the counter in 10 states.

By 2020 gay marriage will be legal in at least half of the U.S.  

U.S. Economics 

On the economic front, 2020 will see a implosion of the "healthcare bubble". By the middle of the next decade,  most Western nations will be in a panic over he increasing cost of providing medical care to their aging populations. But at the same time, genetic engineering, nano machines and improving CPU power will be working from the other directions, making diagnosis, prevention and treatment easier and cheaper. 2020 will be the year that healthcare costs actually level off as increased understanding of the human genome and a program called "Google Doctor" will create "predictive medicine", which will allow for the prevention of most serious and chronic illnesses through gene therapy and other extremely early interventions.

By 2015, more people will be sent into low Earth orbit by private companies than by governments. By 2020 a private company will place a lander on the moon and a major business publication will publish an article entitled "Who Owns the Moon?" as entrepreneurs begin to press for a renegotiation of the mid-20th century outer space treaty, which does not provide for the allocation of property rights in outer space. Ultimately, there will have to be a "Homestead Act" of the 21st century to settle the question of who owns celestial bodies, especially resource rich asteroids.

By 2020 the iLanguage 3.0 App for the IPhone X is going to change the world. iLanguage will be a program which can interpret any known language into any other known language instantly.

By 2020, a online program known as "Google Lawyer" will be able to pass a legal Turing Test, by automatically compiling a legal brief that is indistinguishable from a brief written by top lawyers.

Geo Politics

By 2020, the worlds great powers, including China, Japan, the E.U. and the U.S. will continue to have a generally amicable and constructive relationship as the amount of economic and cultural connectivity continues to increase. The U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. will have be economically connected to the point where a citizen of any one "Anglo-Sphere" nation will not need a visa to work or attend college in another.

In Europe and the Middle East, there will be much hand wringing over the large refugee camps that exist to house the several million survivors of the 2nd Russo-Iranian War (Also known as the Caucasus War of 2018 and the 3rd War of Soviet Reunification). The new secretary general of the U.N. will be elected on the promise to "finally de-radiate Moscow and Tehran" but he will privately admit that no one really knows how many years or how much money that project will take. Most serious observers will accept that large sections of both Iran and Russia will remain uninhabitable for maybe 100 years. 

Islamabad will be occupied by U.S., Afghan, E.U. and Chinese Peacekeepers whose job it will be to make sure the Indians keep their promise to leave Pashtunistan by 2025. 

 







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